Artcow Skye Barnick / Scott Barnick / Aanchir / Skybard - A 27 year old LEGO/ Brony fan living with Autism, and is now a woman.

[The Reaper]

Meet Scott Barnick, an autistic man who loves everything LEGO, and proudly declares himself a Brony. He's also recently become a woman.

born in 1991 (27 at time of writing). Like all young children Scott began playing with LEGOs at a young age. Unlike most children Scott didn't outgrow his love for LEGOs, continuing to be a builder later in life (archive).

AFOL stands for Adult Fan Of LEGO.

Scott's passions for LEGO doesn't stop at just collecting and building official sets. Scott also has a passion for properly identifying LEGO set colors, and became known on forums and blogposts for correcting discolorations on LDD (LEGO Digital Designer) creations by other users. Scott also engages in thorough reviews of new LEGO set releases (archive) and discussion of upcoming sets (archive).


He does bring up a bit of a point about monetizing a religious symbol, but when done correctly and tastefully these things are usually a nonissue.


He also has a passion for creating MOC (My Original Creations) with acute attention to detail.


Kinda simple, but repurposed from a different set.

His most interesting MOC (and likely his favorite) is P.A.I.G.E. or the Prototype Artificial Intelligence, Gynoid Expression (archive).

Spoiler: The pieces begin to fit.

Note the pieces used for the breasts, as in other LEGO communities the Nuva shoulder boobs vs. Rahkshi head boob debate is intense.

If not here is his flickr photostream so that they can still be viewed along with some of his other creations. archive.md won't archive this and I'm not sure how to save them all.

Scott's about me is where pieces start to snap together.

Spoiler: The Autism Connection

Scott actually does use blocks to increase his social interaction. Or talks to stuffed animals.

Scott doesn't let his social awkwardness get the better of him though, as he does make appearances at various LEGO conventions. He's even had the chance to be a guest speaker at one.

Its an hour long and there is about six people on the panel, but he's the second one to introduce himself. Its interesting.

Spoiler: Brickfair, VA

Program guide for one of the more recent Brickfair, Virginia.


The guide names every guest in attendance, and look at all the Barnick Boys in attendance.
Just look at that logo. Look familiar?

Spoiler: Autism Connection: Facebook Edition

Scott is very much in the "Disorder before person" camp.

Now Scott's been in and out of school for several years now, as he reaches to achieve his dreams at working for LEGO. He's even had some success, landing an internship in the Photo studio at Hasbro.

Now as these screen caps have shown Scott has undergone a change. In the year 2018 Scott decided it was time to come out and announce he is now a woman.

Spoiler: Coming out

Here's a look at how his transition is going:

Here's a sort of highlight reel of Skye's Facebook, as there's some exceptional stuff.

Spoiler: Facebook Grabs

Ninjago loot from parents at age 27

Latest post

Thick legs, this is relevant

Most of his work is nowhere near the hourglass figure.

Deviantart is a scary place.

To be honest I completely forgot he was an open Brony fan.

Last but not least, that Twitter heading is art for the LEGO Elves set, Scott's favorite type of LEGO.

Facebook: Skye Barnick (archive)
Twitter: Skye (archive)
Twitter suspended my account made with an email using @Null 's servers for violating terms of service. I hadn't posted or followed anyone yet. There is likely more on his Twitter that I do not have.
Deviantart: Skybard (archive)
flickr: Skye Barnick / Aanchir
BZPower Forums: Aanchir
Eurobrick Forums: Aanchir (archive)

I'm not too sure how to go about archiving the flickr account, and the Deviantart one might be janky, but this is pretty much all I have. One thing to note though: In my search to find the Autism Connection I stumbled on other MOC that looked a bit more absurd. There are potentially many more exceptional individuals communicating with blocks out there.

As one final addition his flickr contains a group list, which lists all the groups he is interested in. I didn't look into all of these yet. There look to be some exceptional ones.

 

[RK 672]

Did you ever play with Legos as a child? Research from the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders by Owens et al. (2014) investigated the use of Lego Therapy as a social skill intervention for children with autism and Asperger Syndrome. Although insignificant, a trend was found for increasing communication and social skills in those with autism using Legos. Although this research is newer, an exploration of the colorful plastic bricks results in some similarly colorful characters.

First sentence needs to be a description of the cow.

After reading this, it seems he's a tranny Lego brony autist who has opinions common to those crowds. What makes him stand out from other spergs like this? You haven't shown much that would warrant a thread. His opinions don't stand out and are not particularly funny.

Also, don't have people download zips or pdfs.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

He looks like a low-rent Super Sentai villain in that getup.

 

[HomeAloneTwo]

Theres only two outcomes when you're this obsessed with legos.
#1 you create really cool customs for profit later in life
#2 you do this shit

 

[NeverHappened]

Theres only two outcomes when you're this obsessed with legos.
#1 you create really cool customs for profit later in life
#2 you do this shit

That's the first time I'm hearing about this "#1"

 

[Sofonda Cox]

Hiding the bristly man-chin behind a hand, as if that is going to make an iota of difference.

 

[Audit_The_Autist]

Just my two cents on the guy, I don't think his obsession with legos is particularly lol-worthy. Tbh, most of the creations you've shown us aren't half bad. The gynoid robot was funny and I'd be down for seeing more of that kind of content; it's funny how that model looked drastically worse than his normal stuff.

His adventures in trannydom might be interesting if there's something novel to be found there. Is there some funny intersection between legos and his gender identity? It could be amusing if he went on long rants describing his sexuality in lego terms.

All in all, I would say that Scott is an amusing character who might be fun to study in a harmless fashion. He's certainly a fine example of the effects of autism but I can't say if he's particularly special. What makes him different from any other lego obsessed autist? Sure he's trans but so are many others with autism.

 

[Guts]

Why doesn't he just build a set of breasts with all those bricks?

 

[The Reaper]

Just my two cents on the guy, I don't think his obsession with legos is particularly lol-worthy. Tbh, most of the creations you've shown us aren't half bad. The gynoid robot was funny and I'd be down for seeing more of that kind of content; it's funny how that model looked drastically worse than his normal stuff.

His adventures in trannydom might be interesting if there's something novel to be found there. Is there some funny intersection between legos and his gender identity? It could be amusing if he went on long rants describing his sexuality in lego terms.

All in all, I would say that Scott is an amusing character who might be fun to study in a harmless fashion. He's certainly a fine example of the effects of autism but I can't say if he's particularly special. What makes him different from any other lego obsessed autist? Sure he's trans but so are many others with autism.

Yeah I'm not finding too much. He does a ton of lurking in groups but doesn't post as much. He is a twin, and his brother's social media looks almost exactly the same (he's just not a woman yet). I think the thing that drew me in was the fact that he transitioned after building a busty LEGO woman, in which the description of the model was to help an autistic girl to communicate. He pushed on himself this idea of being a woman because girls he knew would interact with him (likely out of politeness). He took this to mean he should be a woman instead of developing better social skills. His concern about people on Deviantart doesn't help, as that's where more of the interesting stuff would likely be. He's also hardly started transitioning, so there hasn't been a lot of development on that as of yet. Right now it only looks like he shaved his face and put on some make up.

First sentence needs to be a description of the cow.

After reading this, it seems he's a tranny Lego brony autist who has opinions common to those crowds. What makes him stand out from other spergs like this? You haven't shown much that would warrant a thread. His opinions don't stand out and are not particularly funny.

Also, don't have people download zips or pdfs.

Made some changes and removed the .zip and pdf. Can I ask why including zips and pdfs are discouraged?

 

[Cast Away]

Made some changes and removed the .zip and pdf. Can I ask why including zips and pdfs are discouraged?

The risks of trojans and malware?

 

[The Reaper]

I've dug through his blog posts on the BZPower Forums, and got a few more with potential.

Spoiler: Various blogs

Life update (archive)- School isn't going well. Grandmother hospitalized, more LEGOs and brony related antics 2013
2013 year in review (archive)- School finished terribly, and Scott can't find a job. Romance is a struggle but he's hopeful for the future.

Ask me anything (archive)- Just shows off being more of a brony. Only really interesting bit is his younger brother jokingly asking questions. Its sort of nice to see his whole family sharing an interest.

Humble Pony Bundle (archive)- Informing other bronies on site about the some MLP Humble Bundle.

LEGOs Gendered Marketing (archive)- Points out how LEGO used to market to girls and gives his opinion about it.
Wet Mane Ponies get Banned on the BZPower forum (archive)- Apparently BZPower Forum has its limits. It is supposed to be a site to talk about toys so the argument is that kids might see. He does say he finds a minifigure sexy in this post.

Stumbling through songwriting (archive)- This ones interesting. He discusses reading about another forum user transitioning and he tries to write a song from the point of view of Takanuva the Toa of Light, who transitioned from Matoran (little Bionicle) to Toa (Bigger Bionicle). Another troon also appears in the comments.

Spoiler: The song for ease of reading

Who I Am

I've been wandering aimlessly
For what was really in me all along
I wasn't sure what I was meant to be,
Like my identity was written wrong

People said I should settle down
And stop questioning what I should be
But I knew settling would just amount
To never knowing my true destiny

{chorus}
I always felt out of place
With the mask on my face
And I hope you all understand
That the mask that I've worn
since the day I was born
is not the measure of who I am

I may seem like a stranger, now
With a name that you have not known before,
A face and body that are changed somehow
From the familiar ones you knew me for

Underneath, though, I haven't changed,
And now I'm surer than I've ever been
That I've found just what I was looking for,
The me that long was hidden deep within

{chorus}
I always felt out of place
With the mask on my face
And I hope you all understand
That the mask that I've worn
since the day I was born
is not the measure of who I am
Who I am

Please accept the new name I chose
The path that finally I know is mine,
Don't insist that I am just confused,
Or that the name I had before was fine

United with the friends I have made,
My duty to myself and all will be
To chart a future where we're not afraid
To shine a light upon our destinies!

{chorus}
I always felt out of place
With the mask on my face
And I hope you all understand
That the mask that I've worn
since the day I was born
is not the measure of who I am
Who I am
Who I am
Who I am
This is who I am

I might actually put some chords behind it. His rhythm isn't too bad.

And last but not least his Big Announcement (archive). This is him telling his forum friends he's a woman now. Its the exact same as the one to his family, but he made this post a day later.

I also found some cringier art that he posted when he was younger. He was still above 20 though.

Spoiler: Horses and Bionicles

And one I found of his standard art he worked on in school. He's good at making use of space. Its based off a photo from his family Thanksgiving from a few years back.

I don't know if this content will make him a proper lolcow, but he certainly has his quirks. From some of this stuff it looks to me like he was just a boy with autism and bronies and LEGO fans were the only people he found he could easily talk to. Going off to college gave him the opportunity to go to more Brony conventions, which I think led him down the path he chose. Failing in school didn't help, and likely caused him to spiral further out of control.

The one thing I still don't have a direct answer for is how he attends all these Brony and LEGO conventions while buying all the merch he does. Sure he got to some events for free, but as a semi-jobless neet to me it doesn't seem like he'd have the money for all this. His parents may very well be loaded, but at the same time they purchase LEGOs for him, his twin and his younger brother. His dad might even keep some himself.

One thing I was thinking about doing was removing the thread and keeping an eye on him. I could also follow up on more information that I have now, pull this thread and begin work on the AFOL community instead. There are a lot of weirdos mixed in with older adults whose children/grandchildren play with their LEGOs and to me its odd how they come together. I'm also convinced there has to be some sort of group with a LEGO fetish. There is such an emphasis on breast construction and figure that goes beyond model appreciation.

 

[RodgerDodger]

/sigh :powerlevel: incoming.

It’s always weird seeing someone posted here that you have encountered in the wild. But I must say having seen him on Eurobricks and Brickset as Aanchir for a number of years, I’m not sure that he is a lolcow. A bit obsessive regarding Lego, but incredibly polite, helpful, rational and well spoken/voiced. I’ve never seen a spergout meltdown or insult from either him or his brother. (His brother is Lychir) Heck by Lego fan standards they aren’t even that obsessive. The two often come across as some of the saner voices in the Lego community, outside of the whole Brony thing. If I had not seen this thread I would have assumed they were a couple of white bread mildly autistic Midwest Christians or Mormons with career paths in either mechanical design or working for Lego. Their design work is fantastic. The worst I could say is they are both disturbingly polite and well spoken for teenagers on the interwebz. Always suspected some sort of closeted “Homersexual” but nothing beyond that.

As far as the Adult Lego Community? It’s a mixed bag. Most of them are simply a sort of modern Model Railroader. Just using Lego as the medium. They have about the same level of obsessive autists as any other Internet Modelling or nerd Community. (Take that as you will) Actually substantially less than a few. If you want a fun time go search the forums of any sci-fi modelling Community such as Starshipmodeller.com you will find a level of insane middle aged autists there like few others. (Do a search for “Millennium Falcon Mandible Toe In” and prepare to witness a level of concentrated autism that makes the #Comicsgaters look like rank amateurs. You’re welcome). The Lego community tends to be mild by comparison. The most insane members tend to be opinionated and obsessive Eastern Europeans. The Will Ferrel character from The Lego Movie was a fairly accurate representation of the bulk of them. Not a huge number of fetish types, you don’t see a lot trying to build themselves a set of boobs. The Community is subdivided into a number of sub fandoms, such as Star Wars (the same Male Middle Aged wage slaves you find in any other Star Wars Community) there is a small offshootof almost Brony’like weirdos that obsess over the LEGO girl focused lines such as “Friends”. I suspect there is a 1:1 correlation there with actual Bronies but they don’t interact much with anyone else.

 

[Chiang Kai-shek]

Oh fuck finally, a potential cow I have interacted with.

:powerlevel: time!

So back in my younger days I joined BZP because autism. I remember seeing this fucker a lot, I think he a had higher opinion of himself then others if I recall. But I remember he would make these fucking long ass posts on stupid shit (tbf a couple of users were known to do that). He does come off as saner than most AFOLs I will admit but his interest in lego friends and some lego elf shit weirded me out.

I want to bring some attention to the tranny shit, see this isn't new in the bzpower community. A lot of staff had been "Coming out" as trans for past few years. The first guy who did was a ride and he was pretty batshit. His name was Andrew McIntre if I'm correct he went trans and just lost it. See he took any even slightly vaguely transphobic comment super seriously. There was some sort of forum fuck up that deleted his posts but his blog still has those wonderful articles! Here's where he proclaims the patriarchy to be the greatest evil the world faces. Another he writes about privilege. You might be noticing a trend here, this sounds a lot like tumblr and you'd be right.

See the forums went down for six months due to software update gone wrong. Many of the users flocked elsewhere, many of the staff went to tumblr and this was the heyday of tumblr sjws. Once the forum was fucking fixed the tumblrites brought back aspects of tumblr with them. This clashed heavily with the majority christian forum members (or whatever was left of them the forum was dying a slow death after that update). But there really wasn't much you could do as the staff were the ones promoting it. This would lead to discussions on the fucking gender of organic mystic robots. And they all ended the same with one of the tranny members getting pissed someone didn't agree with their snowflake status or something.

One particular sticky point was the infamous trans tamaru headcanon. See a tranny decided one day that a minor character of no relevance was actually a ugwu trans girl. His reasoning was despite tamaru being a jungle bionicle (bionicle basically had members of one tribe or element be one gender and jungle bionicles were male and lived in the air) liked to swim. The only characters that like to swim are the water bionicles who are all female, therefore tamaru = tranny. A lot of people didn't like this idea and were called transphobes by members and the staff which shut them up. One of the people who didn't like trannymaru was an actual transperson that op didn't believe was actually trans. The staff decide to promote this head canon everywhere (a moc for trans tamaru was on the featured thread twice) and called anyone who just didn't like a transphobe. See the staff were seen as gods on the forum so you'd better get in line if they thought you stepped out of line. Because this caused past drama with name calling like homophobe and transphobe most people kept their complaints to themselves. Ever since this tumblr shit crept in gender was of one the most discussed things on the forums instead of actual story which would lead to shitfits (lego attracts autism). Here's an example.

How does this all connect to Aanchir or Skye as he wants to be called? Well he is joining in on the tranny trend that took over bzpower, it isn't new and if you visited bzpower you notice a lot of members were going trans. He's part of a long tradition of trannydom on bzp. I wasn't expecting him to go troon but I was wrong.

end :powerlevel:

Also that andrew guy looks a bit like chris in some pics.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Ah yes. In my somewhat mild description of the Lego community I somehow forgot or mentally blocked out the Bionacle spergs. Yep, that there is a true hive of tumblrina Troons and aspies. They are like aging 90’s kid Steven Universe autists with a healthy dose of aphasia. The best way to describe the Bionacle fandom is picture the most argumentative Vegan SJW feminist you have ever encountered. Now imagine if they were shrieking exclusively in Welsh.

Just my two cents on the guy, I don't think his obsession with legos is particularly lol-worthy. Tbh, most of the creations you've shown us aren't half bad. The gynoid robot was funny and I'd be down for seeing more of that kind of content; it's funny how that model looked drastically worse than his normal stuff.

His adventures in trannydom might be interesting if there's something novel to be found there. Is there some funny intersection between legos and his gender identity? It could be amusing if he went on long rants describing his sexuality in lego terms.

All in all, I would say that Scott is an amusing character who might be fun to study in a harmless fashion. He's certainly a fine example of the effects of autism but I can't say if he's particularly special. What makes him different from any other lego obsessed autist? Sure he's trans but so are many others with autism.

Unless I am mistaken I believe that gynoid robot is just a LEGO model or recreation of a “real” life sized gynoid robot that some European fruitloop built. If I remember the real one has more than a bit of a “Metropolis” vibe to it.

Update 1/22: Ol' Anachir would appear to be making friends over on Brickset today.

By Aanchir in United States, 22 Jan 2019 11:04
@Nick: If anything, the fact that you’d lump the LEGO Movies in with franchises whose “original audience” is “white male nerds” says a lot about your perspective here, I think…

I can’t really think of many movie franchises that are telling their original audience they suck, either. Just a bunch of insecure men who think that because they’ve been pandered to by pretty much all these pillars of “nerd culture” for most of their lives, that any movie in those franchises that doesn’t go out of its way to flatter them is tantamount to an attack on their entire demographic.

Yet somehow, plenty of less insecure “white male nerds” manage to enjoy those same movies just fine, same as how so many women and minorities managed to enjoy earlier installments even when characters who looked like them were the ones being sidelined.

Anyway, this set looks like a lot of fun, either as a playset or display piece. I think a lot of the people commenting here are severely underestimating how many AFOLs and TFOLs appreciate fun and creative play features. I mean, for all y’all comparing it to a Nerf blaster, do you realize there’s an entire line of Nerf blasters called Nerf Rival designed for ages 14 and up and popular among college students? With prices as high as $200 for the higher-end models?

For that matter, the idea that “tweens” wouldn’t enjoy a microscale set seems pretty suspect considering how successful the Minecraft Micro-Worlds were even when faced with the same sort of cynicism among AFOLs.

Also, sure, there are only two minifigures (one or both of which are unique)… but also a whole lot of raptors and two unique microfigs. Does that not count for anything?

He's going off on people not liking a new extremely expensive Lego set that is shaped like a giant ramming fist. He seems oddly enthralled by the thing.

I'll let you all come to your own conclusions.

Mod edit: Locking this thread due to inactivity. If he goes off the deep end, we can reopen it. So far, there isn't enough for a thread.